This invention relates generally to agricultural implements and more specifically to an apparatus for feeding crop materials from a stack.
Today's farmers must utilize equipment capable of efficiently planting and harvesting large areas with a minimum of manpower requirements. Recent innovations in hay handling have provided the farmer with implements capable of harvesting and storing hay in compressed stacks weighing in excess of 10,000 pounds. Such stacks are compressed, can shed water and are therefore stored outside. To feed these stacks to livestock requires that the farmer either transport the livestock to the stack where it can be broken apart for feeding or alternatively, that the stack be transported to the cattle or livestock and broken apart for feeding.
Applicants' invention provides a means for raising such a compressed crop stack, transporting it to a feed bunk or range feeding area and thereupon in an operation manned by the farmer alone automatically separating the crop material from the stack and discharging the separated material in a single continuous smooth-flowing stream into the feed bunk or onto the ground for the cattle to feed upon.
Existing stack-feeding machines are also capable of raising a stack and transporting it to a feeding point. However, these machines utilize reciprocating sickle bars to slice sections of the stack off and distribute the sliced sections to the waiting livestock. Oftentimes, the stack of compressed crop material has a frozen surface, includes rocks or other solid objects, or is of a material difficult to cut such as corn stover. During the cutting and feeding of such material, the reciprocating sickle blades often jam or bind resulting in lost time for the farmer. Subsequently, the farmer must either replace the dull or broken blades or tolerate the recurrent downtime which results. In addition to those difficulties caused by the reciprocating blades, the farmer may incur other downtime caused by the necessity of stopping the feeding process to break up the large slices of stack material which have been cut from the stack, but have not broken up into smaller pieces.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an implement for feeding compressed crop stacks which is capable of separating the crop material from a stack without jamming or incurring significant interruptions as a result of the separating process.
It is further an object to provide a stack feeder which is capable of separating equally well material from stacks comprised of hay or other crops including those materials difficult to cut such as stover.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a feeding mechanism which will effectively separate a predetermined amount of crop material from the stack and properly deliver it to a feed bunk or onto the ground in a continuous and smooth-flowing stream and in a noncompressed condition.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a stack feeder capable of removing wide swaths of crop material from the stack as the stack is intermittently advanced so as to minimize the time required of an operator in feeding a stack onto the ground or into a feed bunk.